Burnett, Warren Edsel

Born: 1927 AD
Died: 2002 AD

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1927 – Warren Edsel Burnett was born on the 4th of May, in Austinville.

– He dropped out of Virginia Tech to join the Marines and served in China and Burma at the end of World War II. A Marine buddy invited him to join him at Lamar College in Beaumont, Tex., where he graduated.

– He worked for the district attorney’s office in San Antonio, then joined a private practice in Odessa. He was twice elected district attorney there.

– He won the death penalty for a 23-year-old itinerant hitchhiker named Harry Butcher who had tied up two men at gunpoint and then sexually assaulted their wives. The second husband broke free, grabbed Mr. Butcher’s pistol and shot him in the leg.

1969 – "Butcher was a big step up for me," Mr. Burnett said in an interview with Harper’s magazine.